His reasoning? That he's known a lot of divorcing men who are getting surprised by their wives requesting a divorce. If they could have had a chance at counseling earlier on, he reasons, maybe the divorce wouldn't have happened at all.

As I read this, my mind went instantly back to a friend of mine, who was attending couples counseling with her husband during a really big rough patch in their marriage. One of the first questions the counselor asked was "Who made the appointment? Who picked up the phone and made the call?" The counselor shared with them both that most of the time, if the woman made the call, the marriage had a reasonably good chance of being salvaged, if they were both willing to work at it. But if the man was the one who had to make the call, that statistic changed dramatically. Her counselor said that if it's gotten to the point where the woman has given up, it's very rare you can come back from that - at least in her experience.

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I could totally see that. And to address this representative in Utah, whose heart is in the right place but whose eyes may not be seeing reality, I have to point out that if you're surprised by your spouse's request for divorce, you're either (a) in denial or (b) well-rid of them. Just an opinion, of course.

What do you think? Would it have made a difference if you were mandated into counseling before you could divorce? Or was it too late by the time you'd decided to file?